Taking Aim at an Old Debate

Can Female Athletes Compete Against Men? In Shooting, Yes—But Not in the Olympics

By

Mark Yost

February 23, 2012

As a member of the Texas Christian University rifle team, junior Sarah Scherer competes against some of the best female—and male—shooters in the country. But when she competes in the second round of the Olympic trials at Camp Perry, Ohio, this weekend, she'll only be competing against other women.

Why is that? Is it still unfair for men and women to compete against one another—even in sports where size and strength matter little? Or is it just latent sexism?

Shooting is a sport that certainly requires more brain than brawn. Keen sight, breathing control and trigger squeeze are among the qualities that make an Olympic-caliber shooter. Yet, most shooting competitions remain segregated.

ENLARGE

TCU shooter and Olympic hopeful Sarah Scherer.
Zuma Press

It wasn't always this way. For decades men and women regularly shot against one another in international competitions. But in 1976, American Margaret Thompson Murdock tied for the gold at the Montreal Olympics in the small-bore rifle against teammate Lanny Bassham. When the judges examined the targets more closely, Bassham was awarded the gold, but Thompson's performance was enough to put pressure on the International Olympic Committee—primarily from Eastern European teams—to segregate the sport.

Currently, male and female Olympians only compete head-to-head in equestrian and sailing. There are also mixed events in badminton, luge and tennis. But there are clearly other sports where it is apparent that female athletes could compete with the men if they had the opportunity.

In 1938, Helene Mayer beat the men's U.S. fencing champion, but her title was taken away and a ban was instituted on male-female competitions. The reason? Mayer had won in an unfair fight, the fencing commission said, because men can't go "all out" when playing against women. When women started to petition the IOC in the 1960s to compete in the Olympics, they had to present themselves to a panel of judges to prove they were women.

Women have certainly come a long way since then in terms of strength, conditioning and equality, due in part to Title IX, the federal law that mandated that universities balance resources between men's and women's sports. But recent research also suggests that women still face inherent physiological challenges that make it more difficult for them to compete with men in some sports.

Writing in "Women in Sports: Issues and Controversies," Carol Christensen, an associate dean and exercise physiologist at San Jose State, noted that "starting at puberty, relatively high levels of estrogen in women are responsible for the development of secondary sex characteristics such as deposition of fat in the breasts, buttocks, hips and thighs. High levels of testosterone make possible the development of greater muscle mass in men."

It is this greater muscle mass that most researchers agree gives men a distinct advantage in many sports. On average, women are about 66% as strong as men according to Christensen, with the greatest disparity being in upper-body strength (56%).

This is what primarily rules out contact sports like football, boxing and wrestling from head-to-head competition between the sexes. And even as women continue to improve their training techniques and times in other sports, there are indications that they may have done all they can to erase the inherent physiological differences between the sexes.

The gap between the best men's and women's sprinters—which for decades was closing—has begun widening. In 1927, the men's record for the 100-meter dash was 10.6 seconds and the women's was 12.2, a difference of 15%. In 1999, the records were 9.79 and 10.49, a difference of only 7%. But the current men's world record has since improved to 9.58 (Usain Bolt), while the women's record is still the 10.49 set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.

Likewise, men's and women's volleyball at the collegiate level aren't even the same game, experts say. "I went to an elite men's game earlier this year and couldn't believe how much harder the men hit the ball than the women," said Joan McMullin, a former volleyball player at Arizona State. "I wouldn't want to be on the other end of those spikes."

Shooting is one of the few collegiate sports where men and women regularly compete against one another—and women are often winning.

In 2010, Scherer's TCU squad became the first all-women's team to win the NCAA rifle championship. And the Horned Frogs did it by beating perennial powerhouse Alaska-Fairbanks, winner of nine of the 13 previous championships. In 2011, TCU went 22-0 in the regular season and were heavy favorites at the NCAA national rifle championship in March before finishing third. This season, the team is undefeated thus far.

"What's impressive about that team," said Alaska-Fairbanks coach Dan Jordan, "is that they won the championship with only half the talent pool, because they only recruit women."

Besides TCU, other elite female collegiate shooters include West Virginia's Petra Zublasing, a junior from Italy who will also be competing in the London Olympics this summer. Over the past year, she has finished second in air rifle at the NCAA championships and won a bronze medal at a World Cup event at Fort Benning.

While the TCU women have just one NCAA title, the Horned Frogs have become one of the sport's top teams, competing head-to-head with men. It is enough to convince some that women might even have an advantage over men when it comes to shooting.

"Women have a lower center of gravity and I think that gives them a distinct advantage in shooting from the standing position," said Launi Mieli, head coach of the Air Force Academy rifle team and the only American woman to win an Olympic gold in small-bore rifle. "I think they have better balance."

And yet, while the TCU women compete against men in NCAA competition, the genders are still separated when it comes to Olympic and international competitions. Among the few exceptions outside the NCAA are the National Rifle Association's National Outdoor championships each summer.

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